After Hours (1985) Is there any doubt in any one’s mind that this is Martin Scorsese’s weirdest film? Channelling Henry Miller, Franz Kafka, Neil Simon, Paul Auster and Alfred Hitchcock, the inescapable neighbourhood of After Hours is a threatening urban wonderland of surreal distress, where every inhabitant seems to be on the verge of explosive [...]

James Booker once claimed that Ringo Starr pulled his eye out during a fight, hence the star motif on his eye-patch. Dr John famously described Booker as “the best black, one-eyed junkie piano player genius New Orleans has ever produced.” James Booker was not your average musician and Bayou Maharajah, which explores his entertaining but [...]

“This man is harmless, he just had a soul stirring experience.” – Don Aquilino (José Lewgoy). Deep in the Peruvian rain forests, bankrupt entrepreneur Brian Sweeney Fitzgerald (Klaus Kinski), known to the locals as Fitzcarraldo, has one obsession. His dream is to build an opera house within the harsh and unforgiving jungle terrain of Iquitos, [...]

It’s all about the roast beef sandwich. Ten minutes into Sidney Lumet’s seventies crime drama masterpiece we see the fresh faced, recently graduated Frank Serpico (Al Pacino) on his first beat as a uniformed New York cop. Stopping off for lunch in a greasy spoon diner with his assigned partner he’s introduced to the owner, [...]